Inspiration

Glenlossie
Single Malt Whisky

Glenlossie was founded near Elgin in 1876 by John Duff, a former manager at Glendronach, in partnership with a consortium including Alexander Grigor Allan (who would later have a share in Talisker) and HMS Mackay. The restless, entrepreneurial Duff departed in 1888 to seek his fortune in South Africa and, later, the USA.
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GlenlossieSingle Malt Whisky

Having failed in both continents, he returned to Scotland in the 1890s where, after a spell in charge of the 'Bon Accord' distillery (later to be known as North Port), he set up Longmorn in 1894 with some of his old business partners.

Over the next few years Duff bought out his partners in Longmorn (whose spirit had been an immediate hit with blenders)and set up the neighbouring Benriach distillery(as Longmorn II). With his entire fortune tied up in the trade, Duff was ruined by the Pattison crash of 1898 and went officially bankrupt in 1909, although he had been effectively out of business since the turn of the century.

All this left the running of Glenlossie to the afore-mentioned HMS Mackay (Allan having died in 1895). After successfully navigating the choppy financial waters of the early 1900s and the First World War, the distillery fell silent in 1917 and was sold in 1919 to the nascent Distiller's Company Ltd (DCL, eventually to become Diageo), being run from the DCL subsidiary Scottish Malt Distillers (SMD) from 1930 onwards. The previous year, 1929, had seen a large fire destroy much of the distillery, but rebuilding was swift and successful.

In 1962, Glenlossie's license was transferred to the DCL subsidiary Haig (the blend which accounted for almost the entirety of Glenlossie's malt). At the same time the number of stills was increased from four to six. Less than a decade later, in 1971,a sister distillery, Mannochmore, was constructed on Glenlossie's site and a dark grains plant was also added to convert pot ale and draff from the group's distilleries into animal feed. There is also a bonded warehouse on Glenlossie's land containing over 200,000 maturing casks from various Diageo distilleries.

Given that Glenlossie was named as one of only twelve 'top class' malts by blenders in 1974, it is perhaps surprising that the distillery is so little-known. The reason, however, is easy to determine - the blender's high regard means that demand for Glenlossie remains extremely high, and as a result less than 1% of the distillery's output is kept back for single malt. The only official bottling of Glenlossie currently available is the 10 yo Flora & Fauna release available since the 1990s. This range is being gradually phased out, however, and it remains to be seen what plans Diageo have for this distinguished, yet obscure, workhorse.

Independent bottlings of Glenlossie are pretty rare, although Gordon & Macphail have bottled a handful of expressions recently.